Voice of Experience

A reefed main and full poled-out Yankee pulled our 56ft, aluminum-hulled cutter, Seal, toward Antarctica. My husband, Hamish, and I were halfway across the Drake Passage, with four charter guests and our two young children onboard. We had 17 knots of apparent wind and 10ft seas ...read more

We are anchored in an inlet on Waya, one of the Yasawa islands west of Fiji, on my 48ft sloop Sangvind. My wife, Sylvia, my friend Jeroen and I have enjoyed a few drinks in the cockpit on this starry South Pacific night, playing guitar and singing songs. Just before going to ...read more

I sat on the bow of our pitching boat, 400 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, looking up at the mess of carbon fiber and taffeta that was once a laminated headsail, thinking that this wasn’t part of the sailing dream brochure—nothing like this happened in the La Vagabonde or ...read more

After sailing on Puget Sound and in British Columbia for over 30 years, my wife, Jeri, and I retired to Florida, bought a house on Punta Gorda and worked hard to get it straight. The walls had been painted, furniture bought and assembled, belongings packed, transported and ...read more

“Jib alone is never a good idea,” our sailing guru Jerry told me. (Everyone should have a sailing guru). “Why’s that?” I asked. “It’s so much easier than putting up the main.” “You can only sail off the wind,” he said. “No upwind capability. What happens if someone falls ...read more